


Bedroom Politics

by bigsunglasses



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Worldbuilding: Untheileneise Court - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 09:33:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15992483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigsunglasses/pseuds/bigsunglasses
Summary: After Csethiro made the decision about the bedroom, her sisters regularly told her she was mad.





	Bedroom Politics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Serenade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenade/gifts).



After Csethiro made the decision about the bedroom, her sisters told her she was mad. 

On bad days, she agreed with them - but as the weeks spun by after her wedding, she found it only took a single glimpse at her husband (and on bad days, a glimpse was all she got) to remind herself that she had made the right choice by settling in the Alcethmeret. All too often she woke to see a tall, slight form slipping away between her bed curtains before first light, or to hear beyond her door the muffled, mingled footsteps of emperor and nohecharei going to an early meeting.

The choice of rooms was an empress’s privilege. Csoru had doubtless adored having rooms outwith the Alcethmeret. Csethiro's lip always curled at the thought. Yes, it had no doubt suited Csoru's vanity perfectly to have the whole court witnessing Varenechibel walking to his wife any time he wanted to enjoy marital relations. She had been far from the first empress to make that choice – with its attendant risks. Generations later, everyone still talked at Court (as long as no Drazhada were in earshot) about how Varenechibel I had once sent the Untheileneise Guard to pluck his wife out of her safe haven and brought to the Alcethmeret, after she’d denied him entrance. The lady had not been seen after that for a week.

It didn’t suit Csethiro to expose her marriage like that. This way, no one but the nohecharei and edocharei knew if Edrehasivar Zhas chose to come to his wife at night, or how long he stayed. It was as much privacy as they could ever get and she treasured it, partly for herself, mostly for her tender-souled Maia. 

The problem was, she hated her bedroom. 

*

One twist of the tower stairs below the emperor’s chambers, it was known as the Cherry Room, for the antique cherrywood panelling carved with stylised cherry trees. It had eight tall windows and two fireplaces. She had selected all the furniture herself after touring the basement storerooms beneath the Alcethmeret. She had inquired if she could buy any new furniture. Merrem Esaran, the steward, had looked appalled for a split second before agreeing with obvious reluctance, and Csethiro – never ordinarily one to back down – had felt herself obliged to choose from the stored taste of generations of the Drazhada. She did not want to make enemies of the servants.

Somehow, that memory of her acquiescence soured her attitude to the room. Only when the bed curtains were closed around her and Maia was she at peace there: otherwise she looked at its fine furnishings and bright light and saw a life for which she had never hoped.

She wished she could talk to her sisters properly on the subject. She wished she could unburden her heart, and talk through the dilemma of having made the right decision while being unhappy with its results.

But her sisters would all have given their back teeth for the option of controlling the attentions of their dear, dear husbands. They would not understand.

Often, in the time between Maia departing and her own edocharei arriving, she looked at her room and wondered how other empresses had felt, after making the same choice she did.

*

There were no secrets in the Untheileneise Court. 

Everyone knew within hours when Dach’osmer So-and-so privately met Osmin This-and-that in such-and-such a room. One grew to expect the signs of the seals on letters being steamed up and then stuck down again. Half the laundresses in the Court took bribes to reveal all the stories that stains could tell.

If Csethiro took a second set of rooms outside the Alcethmeret, even to visit for a single hour a week, everyone would know within days. Hours, even. And its knowledge would then create a tempest of gossip. Was the empress unhappy? Was the emperor cruel? Did this bode ill for the advent of a baby prince? There had already been fascination and speculation enough after her decision to reside within the Alcethmeret. It wasn’t a decision that could be altered or unmade without great danger.

Before her marriage, Csethiro had sometimes enjoyed creating and managing a little gossip – it was a dangerous thing, like lightning on a leash: but so very fun, if one was careful.

Now she was a staid and sober married woman with a husband to protect, and a position to maintain. She had to invite ladies of the court to breakfast with her, and endure too many onlookers when she practised at the armory, and remember to walk with perfect posture even in the gardens, just in case there were eyes lurking behind a nearby tree. Every morning a secretary sat with her and itemised her day, hour by hour, always with reference to Maia’s diary which would have been decided already.

If only she could have somewhere private to go. Somewhere simple and quiet. Just for the occasional hour.

*

Four months after her wedding, she paid one of her weekly visits to the nursery. Ino and Mireän greeted her with excitement, announcing that Idra had been moved to his own set of rooms outside the Alcethmeret. The girls said it was because he was so grown up now. Csethiro, having discussed it with Maia several nights in a row, knew it was because it was to send a signal to the Court that everything was now so stable that the Drazhada would risk their heir outside the Alcethmeret. Patrols of the Untheileneise Guard had been casually increased near Idra’s new rooms.

She knelt in front of the girls and asked if they would miss him. Mireän gave her a brave no, Ino cried yes, and Csethiro, struck by a sudden thought, silently counted doors in the nursery, which she had never thought to do before. 

The girls were only too happy to give her a tour. Idra’s former bedchamber was small, unadorned, its walls washed a simple white. Of furnishings, only the bedframe and a sturdy chair remained. A narrow window gave a glimpse north into the Alcethmeret gardens. Long lines of Drazhada patriarchs had not deemed comfort necessary for children.

She could bring cushions for the chair. She could see it now, cosy and comfy and quiet, with her edocharei thinking she was out in the Court and the Court thinking she was resting with a headache.

It would take careful planning, but whenever the girls were out on shopping or educational trips, she could curl up there with very bad novels and very good sweets. 

Just for the occasional, stolen hour. 

There were no secrets in the Untheileneise Court – but she might just keep one in the Alcethmeret.


End file.
